SPATS Monthly Meet - UP

YES! This will be a regular event. 2nd Tuesday of each month. A glorious chance for local Steampunks and the "steam-curious" to meet and realize, "You are not alone in this town."

Come with ideas for events, shows, anything you feel would benefit with the addition of our group of mixed nuts!

Main focus currently is SPATSFEST - our little steampunk convention in the mountains.
Scheduled for the weekend of January 29th. Any and all level of involvement is available, but not required.

Steampunk dress is encouraged, but by no means required.

Awesome Father's Day Gift for Gear Freaks

I have just come across the coolest piece of jewelry. It's a ring with working gears. Any steampunk, or dieselpunk, for that matter, would lose hours of productivity spinning gears and making friends jealous. I know I would. The coolest part is, there's a giveaway, but I'm fighting you for it. Check it out at: ht.ly/1QGKt

Bring Me a Doggie Bag

World Steam Expo is looming on the horizon, as well it should. A vast measure of steampunkdom is rolling, flying, time travelling, and patching little leaks in their airships to make it to Dearborn, Michigan. One, however, will be inconspicuously missing. Arbutus Tinkersmith - cracker packer by day, builder of exotic armaments by night. Some say he's a recluse, and shuns the public eye. Others say he stays too dang busy for his own good. Neither one is true for this week. Vacation time is here, but travel time is not. With the unwavering rigidity of a petrified duck, the schedule was not permitted to be split to get off the follwing Monday for the trip back. Petrified duck, huh?

With his trusty companion Tesla Underfoot by his side - well actually under foot earning his name on a daily basis - Arbutus prepares for the upcoming "weekend of solitude." In need of a project and a new vest, Arbutus bravely purchases the material for an endeavor outside of his usual skill set. Snipping away at the vest pattern with scissors that bind a bit as they close makes the task a bit tedious. Brocade fabric for the front pinned, Arbutus finds the cloth does not like to hold it's shape while cutting. The back and lining are a bit more compliant.

A new day dawns, and the time of departure draws nigh for all but the father of SPATS, Mr. "I got sewing to do" Tinkersmith. Katie Smithington finds herself laden with freshly printed SPATSFEST flyers. "Shameless self promotion. Take advantage of it whenever you can." How often has she heard that mantra. This time the task of convention promoter falls on her 18 year young shoulders. "Spread the word all you can. Learn all you can. Be awesome all you can. That is your assignment."

Katie accepts the flyers and assignment. "Anything to shut him up." she thinks.

The ladies in Arbutus' life are loaded up and ready to go. "Guess it's just as well I'm not going. There's no room for me or my stuff in this puny car now."

Hugs and kisses are exchanged, the pitiful puttering of a crap-for-crap car, and the home falls silent. The darts sewn earlier in the day call out to Arbutus. "When you gonna get off your butt and do the pockets?" The pockets. Nothing was that big of a challenge up to now.

"Fuse the welt. Fold the welt. Iron the welt. Baste the welt. Sew the welt to the front of the vest. Sew the pocket to the front of the vest. Cram the pocket thru the little hole in the vest. Sew some more crap. Hope to God you didn't screw anything up, cuz you got no ride to get replacement cloth." Some instructions. They come across with the attitude of, "We know you. You don't sew. You're a big fat phoney." About this time a tell-tale Tesla fart wafts silently up from under the table.

Arbutus shifts his focus to the computer. A fresh location with no dog flatulence - yet. "I gotta get some of this crap caught up." Emails, postings, replies to postings, self indulgent tweets. One message on twitter falls on something other than the usual deaf ears.

"I have a good cheater way to do welt pockets." Jill makes Arbutus the best offer he's heard all day. She offers to draw it up and email it to him. Bless her heart. Arbutus does not see himself as so macho as to not accept sewing advice from a woman he barely knows in the twitterverse.

After all, being "macho" is a sign on insecurity, right? If someone is secure in who they are, then they will gladly accept help without stigma. Yeah. This is what the SPAT Society is all about, anyway. Bringing artists, bulders, and enthusiasts of the world of steampunk together. As we help each other, we become a self sustaining force. Growing, pulsing, and throbbing with every drop of new blood that falls into the talent pool. Let's see what the morning brings.

Hopefully some welt pocket cheater plans.

A big thank you to all who came out for our grand organizational meeting this past Wednesday. A flyer design was submitted by Johnny Lemuria, altered slightly, scrutinized heavily, endorsed by all in attendance, and verbally abused by all passers by. This will be used for propagandizement and grand proliferation of the notion that Asheville will be the next Steampunk Mecca. At the very least, SPATSFEST will be a weekend of steamy fun and frivolity.
Yes, the VERY LEAST.

While this blog is intended to be the primary disseminal source for all your spattastic info, you are quite welcome to join in on your favorite social networking site:

MySpace: SPATSociety
Facebook : Tinkersmith
Twitter: Tinkersmith
Ning: SPATSFEST
Ning: Steampunk Empire - SPATS group

Hope to hear from you soon.

Oh, btw: Tinkersmith has nothing to do with tinkerbell. Think of a blacksmith, silversmith, goldsmith. Tinkersmith is the village smithy who tinkers new and seemingly useful things out of old discarded crap. Guess I'm kinda the Dr. Frankenstein of junk. Mwahahaha.

My Pathetic Plea for Help

This has been an unproductive depressing winter. My presence in polite society has been quite infrequent. It has been a time of working my usual 12 - 14 hr days, come home, chores, eat, zonk out. Numerous painful dentist visits. (twitter - @tinkersmith -> #DentureAdventure) Several failed attempts at molding leather monogoggle mask. ENOUGH BELLYACHING!

Now to my real reason for all this blathering. SPATSFEST '11! If you want to be involved in sculpting this event into a spectacle of sight and sound, be at Hanna Flannigan's on Biltmore Ave. Wed. Apri 7 at 7 PM.

The greatest need to address right away is a flyer to hand out/post at upcoming AnachroCon (which I will be attending with Katie Smithington) and World Steam Expo. It saddens me to say I will not be attending, however, Katie will be there, representing and radiating with the glory of all that is SPATS! I was able to get the week before off, but have to work on Monday. BOO! The life of a cracker packer is a tale of missed opportunities and woe.

Anyhow, back to the flyer. The challenge we have before us is to make it vague and intriguing. Vague, because the details will not be fleshed out yet. Intriguing, because, well, duh. A few details we do have: it will be a one day event, unless, of course, we wrangle enough content to expand.
The date: Saturday January 29, 2011
Locations: Firestorm Cafe and Eleven On Grove, Asheville, NC
Entertainment: Hopefully, we can get our friends, Hellblinki again. Vaudeville/Burlesque, whomever else we can entice.
Author(s), panels, vendors. Attendee swap meet area.

If you are interested in getting in on the ground floor of this event - too late. But you can catch up. We've only made it up a step or two. There are several ways to contact me:

comment here

Myspace: SPATSociety

Facebook: Tinkersmith

Twitter: Tinkersmith

Email: Tinkersmith[at]live.com

I'm quivering with anticipation. Oh, wait. That's just Tesla scratching himself against my leg.